One of the tasks in enterprise management is to ensure consistent information lifecycle. The information lifecycle includes various stages of data or metadata processing, starting with creation of data and ending with data disposal. Usually, large enterprises employ a network of computer systems that are integrated in complex system architectures to automate business processes and data management. In such enterprises, a single piece of information is often transferred from one persistency to another between several different applications and systems. Consistent information and data reports are required from the diverse environment of the information during its lifecycle.
For example, financial data is typically created in an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system of a company unit. At an end of a financial period (e.g., end of month) part of the created financial data is transferred into a separate consolidation system where it might be combined with financial data coming from other company units. The data could be used for end-of-period processing for the whole enterprise, and for group reports, for instance. At some later point, the financial data is usually removed from the ERP system and from the consolidation system to be archived into a storage system, according to selected archiving rules.
During its lifecycle, the information has to be consistent and available to users to ensure efficient enterprise management, as well as to satisfy various statutory requirements. For example, there are different financial reports that are generated using data from an ERP system of a company unit. Same data is used in reports generated in a consolidation system. Archive storage systems also provide various reports based on the archived data. There are many factors that could cause inconsistency of the information, e.g., user error, incomplete processing, transaction failure. Therefore, the information is typically audited throughout its lifecycle and in every environment or system where it is persisted. With respect to the financial data lifecycle, enterprises (especially the financial institutions) may be statutorily obligated to provide such verification. Data verification procedures applied in a company are typically subject to external audits.
Data transfers across different systems during the information lifecycle maybe one of the causes of inconsistency. Therefore, data transferred between two computer system environments within enterprise information architecture should be examined before, during and after the transfer. However, verification of a cross systems data transfer can be a burdensome task with little or no automation. One that could consume a lot of resources, and one that could require specialists from several enterprise departments.